


Better

by stellarel



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:47:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28434864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellarel/pseuds/stellarel
Summary: After an adventure that makes the Doctor feel particularly uncomfortable about her past, she is spiraling into a mess of self-hate and terrible feelings. Yaz helps, because she understands.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	Better

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is based on a prompt i got on tumblr, "Please don't say that about yourself. Please don't believe that. You're so much more than that, you're so..." , with Yaz and 13, but it turned into a whole big thing and a lot longer than i planned so i thought i'd post it here too! This fic does have some pretty heavy themes, dealing with the Doctor's self doubt and other negative feelings, and her past. Child abuse is mentioned, but not graphically depicted. Murder is mentioned, but again, not graphically depicted. There is a happy ending, of sorts, and nobody gets hurt or dies in this fic, this is just...the aftermath i guess, where the Doctor feels bad about all the things she's done and seen and lived through.

The TARDIS _pings_ with a new distress signal.

And, of course, the Doctor opens it. That's what she _does_ \- business as usual.   
She opens the message, expecting to see the familiar coordinates of one of the usual planets she frequented, or maybe one of those unstable New Earth spaceships, or maybe a colony moon. And maybe a part of her was still hoping it would somehow one of these days be River, asking for the Doctor to come catch her.

It wasn't any of those things.

It was the Harmony & Redemption spaceship - which was unusual, and strange, and a little concerning. Most of the passengers onboard were usually _fighting_ the Doctor, not asking for her help - and it also wasn't set on the right date to be their S.O.S message from when they crashed into Darillium.

And it also wasn't River.

No, this was someone else. Someone onboard who was asking for help. A spaceship full of criminals, murderers, and smugglers - who would ask for her help? Who would _need_ her help? Most of those people would probably have an easier time living their lives if the Doctor stayed as far away as possible.

She didn't exactly like that thought, either.

The Doctor stares at the message for a good while. The TARDIS has, helpfully, left it untranslated, and the circular Gallifreyan swirls in the air in front of her, almost hypnotizing.

She always helps when people ask for it.

But do these people deserve it?

The Doctor hangs her head, annoyed at the weight of her thoughts. Could she really ignore this?

Was that really even an option?

Yaz leans up from behind her, studying the image that was floating in the air.   
"What's that?" She asks, the curiosity clear in her voice.

They hadn't gone anywhere in a while, and her humans were starting to get bored. Well, at least this one. The other two were currently out somewhere off playing video games and poker.

"A message." The Doctor answers, vague on purpose, still trying to get her thoughts in order.

"What kind of message?"

The Doctor lifts her head to study the message again, not having fully decided how she feels about it yet. What kind of message was it? A distress signal or a trap?

"Not sure yet."

Yaz leans closer again, almost poking her nose into the fractals of the image. "You can read that, can't you? I've seen similar markings around in here."

"I can, yes." The Doctor takes a breath and crosses her arms. "Just not sure what it means yet."

Yaz nods, leaning away again. "Well, what does it say?"

The silence hangs in the air.

The Doctor finally translates it as accurately as it can be translated;

_"Please help me."_

Tilting her head, Yaz furrows her brows at the Doctor. "That's pretty straight forward, isn't it?"

The Doctor takes a deep breath before answering. "Usually, yes. It's not as much the message as it is the origin of it that's confusing."

"What do you mean?"

The Doctor leans to the console, and shifts her eyes to the ceiling, for no real reason other than just to avoid eye contact.

There was so much she hadn't told them. Her humans. This time around, she had left a lot of things unsaid, a lot of details hidden, practically all of her past. Yaz didn't _know_ about her past, about all the running and chaos and bloodshed and pain, about River or Gallifrey or the Time War. She didn't know about _any_ of it, because the Doctor hadn't told her.

It was nice, being so unknown. Fresh off the regeneration, she could restart, and only tell them things she wanted them to know. Only show them what she wanted them to see. And hide all the painful things. Or, well, most of them, anyways.

But now there was a problem; explaining where this message was coming from would mean exposing herself and her past. And it would put both of them in danger - because Yaz would want to help, she would want to come along, of course - and most of the passengers onboard probably wanted the Doctor dead, and this probably automatically included anyone traveling with her. Those people didn’t bother with worrying about collateral damage.

Counterpoint: Most of her enemies hadn't seen this face, yet.

Counter-counterpoint: It would still be dangerous. Going snooping around in a place where everyone was a dangerous, unhinged killer, criminal, smuggler without a conscience - what was it that River had said? _'This is where genocide comes to relax'?_

Yeah, poking her nose into whatever shady business was going on in there definitely didn't sound like a very safe, human-friendly way to spend an afternoon.

The most dangerous people in the universe. All in one place and protected by the best security money and threats of violence can buy.

Not exactly something she was comfortable pulling Yaz into.

Counter-counter-counterpoint:

Someone needed her help.

"Could be a trap." The Doctor explains, after a silence that had been just a fraction too long.

"You usually run straight into traps, hoping to find whoever set them." Yaz points out, crossing her arms, mirroring the Doctor's pose.

The Doctor hums quietly, acknowledging her point. "This time it's coming from a place I..."

She doesn't really know how to finish that sentence. Place I'm not very popular in? Place full of dangerous people? Place I really don't want to be in? Place I don't like?

Place where the most terrible beings in the universe get together to kick back and relax and trade stolen goods and then have a good laugh about it all later? Compare invasion tactics?

A particularly annoying problem with this type of thinking was, of course, trying to explain what kind of people went on these cruises, and then trying to explain why she didn't want to go.

A luxury cruise, reserved only for the most ruthless killers, monsters and torturers.

And the worst part was that the Doctor could get a free ticket whenever she wanted, easy. Many times over.

She would fit right in.

How do you explain that to a human?

"A lot of dangerous people there." She finally settles on a non-answer, with a small nod, as if to convince herself. "Criminals, smugglers. People who don't like me. Not sure why any of them would want my help, nevertheless ask for it."

Yaz leans back, looking at the message again. It had, slowly, translated to English, and morphed from circles to words.

"Could be someone doing a job against their will. You know, like human trafficking? Or...alien trafficking I guess. But what if someone's there only 'cause they don't have a choice?" She offers, in an attempt to help.

The Doctor takes a moment to consider this. It could be - a lot of big sales went down in there, and it wasn't totally unheard of to send someone else to do it for you.

"Hmm. Could be. Don't know."

She didn't like not knowing.

It was gnawing at her. She knew it was dangerous, but she couldn't just _not_ answer a distress signal. It wasn't in her DNA.

The Doctor sighs, and pushes a button to accept the coordinates. Giving in.

She walks to the other end of the console, pulling a lever. "Right. So we're doing this then." She's fidgeting with the controls, mainly just to have something to do, not as much to actually do anything. "I've been there before, once. You need to understand that these people are dangerous. They might not look like it, but each and every one of the passengers have done terrible, terrible things."

She glances over at Yaz to make sure she was listening. "Things you couldn't even imagine. Last I heard, the price of admission to even get on the guest list was genocide."

The Doctor hides from her gaze, but she can sense Yaz freezing as her words sink in.

"This is more dangerous than usual. So no running off. If we so much as think about causing trouble, nobody onboard would hesitate to vaporize us on the spot."

She walks back to the other side of the console again, slowly, and Yaz nods, her face more serious now.

No point in telling her she didn't have to come - the Doctor knew her well enough to know she would come either way. There was no stopping Yasmin Khan.

She understood the risks. Or at least she thought she did. And that was the best the Doctor could do, really.

"Right then. We'll need a change of clothes. It's a luxury spaceship - extremely black tie. Vantablack tie." She shoves her hands in her pockets, hoping to shift the gears in her brain to something a little less dreadful. "Or maybe not vantablack. Regular black should do. But, you know, fancy."

Yaz nods again, kicking into action. "Should we get the boys?"

The Doctor shakes her head, already on her way to the wardrobe. "Not this time. The smaller the group, the better. You know undercover work. Don't want to attract too much attention."

The Doctor was still doing her best to pretend she wouldn't fit right in with the rest of the guest list.

She does her best to ignore that thought while looking for her old suit, and while getting dressed, and while trying to fit all her important things to her pockets.

She hesitates when she gets to the bow tie. She half wants to wear it for familiar comfort, and half doesn't. And besides, she's pretty sure all the familiar comfort in the world wouldn't make her feel comfortable now.

Taking a deep breath, she chooses a dark red bow tie that the TARDIS had set on display. It goes with the lining of her jacket, which is a nice detail, and it isn't too close to anything she would wear on a regular day.

_Blood red._ Seemed appropriate.

She tried not to think about it too much.

Seems like the TARDIS had color-coordinated - Yaz was wearing a red dress too, and the Doctor suspected this was on purpose. The TARDIS was smart like that.

"Well, this is definitely more fancy than what I've worn for any other undercover operations." She comments, brushing her hair over on one shoulder, braiding it as she walked.

The Doctor just nods, silent, her mouth dry.

Yaz twists her hair into a bun. "Any rules of etiquette I should know about?"

"No." The Doctor manages to choke out, avoiding eye contact and pretending to focus on the controls.

No rules among thieves.

The TARDIS doesn't land in the supply closet, this time. To make this whole thing go as smoothly as possible, they need to go in the front door, like everybody else. Blend in. Anything else would raise suspicions. A place like this was constantly monitoring life signs, in and out.

So she parks in the shuttle bay, behind a large conical ship, hoping the TARDIS would be at least somewhat hidden from view. After all, while most of her enemies hadn’t seen this face yet, the TARDIS was still very recognizable if you knew what you were looking for.

Briefly, the Doctor thinks she _really_ should fix that chameleon circuit.

She scans the surroundings, and nothing too suspicious shows up.

The Doctor isn't sure if she should be relieved or not.

They walk in the main doors, stop to stand in line, and the Doctor is sweating through her shirt. She's pretty sure her skin would start to melt pretty soon.

Yaz hadn't asked how they would get in. And the Doctor hadn't told her. She hadn’t asked. And this was a conversation she would, preferrably, like to avoid for as long as possible.

She loops her arm around Yaz.

When it's their turn, the Doctor clears her throat, hoping that by some miracle none of the workers would make a scene about this.

"Doctor Smith, plus one."

The Doctor's records should be bloody enough to warrant a plus one.

The blue-skinned service desk worker barely glances up from their screen.

"Credentials?"

The Doctor hands over the psychic paper, with remarkably few intentions of lying. A place like this was way too secure for any of her lies to get past the front desk - any but her real ID.

The picture doesn't match, of course, but they should still accept it. Her most-used aliases are on record, as are the changing faces.

The blue-skinned service desk worker stands up, fast, and stares at her with wide eyes. Briefly looks over Yaz, too, and then just nods.

_Ah._

_Accepted then._

"Of course. Right this way, Doctor Smith."

The Doctor forces a smile, and follows, pulling Yaz along.

She's avoiding Yaz's eyes, hoping she doesn't say anything about how easily they got in.

She doesn't.

They're immediately escorted to a table, and the Doctor does her best to not think about what that means. It's a corner table, which is good, but she doesn't like the idea of where this puts her in the hierarchy of the ship. When she had been here with River, there hadn't been a table ready, and River had _planned_ to be there.

"Could I get you anything? The wine list, perhaps?"

The Doctor almost orders a kid's menu, before she remembers where she is.

"A wine list would be nice, thank you."

"Do you drink wine?" Yaz asks, eyeing the room as the service worker walks away.

"Don't know. Probably not." The Doctor shrugs. "But it's better than sitting in an empty table with nothing to do. Do _you_ drink wine?"

Yaz tilts her head and shifts in her place, looking surprisingly casual for someone in a situation like this. "I could."

She then looks over the room again, with a remarkably pleasant fake smile on her lips. "Notice anything out of place yet?" She asks, casually, with her voice a little quieter than normal.

"Hm. Not yet, still scanning. But it's a large ship, this is just the main dining hall of this floor. Besides, I think whatever it is we're looking for might be happening behind closed doors." The Doctor frowns a little.

Yaz nods, smiling at the waiter that brings over the wine list and switching the conversation over to more ordinary topics.

The Doctor barely pays attention to what they're actually talking about - only about 15% of her brain is occupied with it, but it seems to be enough to uphold the illusion of an ordinary, not-important, casual conversation.

She tries her best to look like she belongs there.

It feels too easy.

Yaz does order wine, and drink it, too. The Doctor makes some terrible excuse about them not having what she normally drinks, which makes the waiter terribly apologetic, and it turns into a whole show of " _just tell us what it is, we'll order it in!_ "

Yaz saves the situation by telling the waiter _it's fine, thank you, we would like some privacy now, if you don’t mind._

They don't get many moments of privacy until the blue-skinned service worker comes back to inform the Doctor that their room is ready.

Which throws the Doctor into a _whole_ new spiral of terrible thoughts. _A room?_

_How bad must a person be to automatically get a room in a place like this?_

"Of course," She says, trying to keep her voice from shaking. "Thank you."

"I didn't know we were staying." Yaz says once they're alone again.

The Doctor swallows, momentarily hoping she had ordered something to drink, even if it was wine.

"Neither did I."

"Well, more privacy, I guess." Yaz shrugs, leaning back in her seat. "That's good, right?"

The Doctor takes a breath. "I'd like to not spend any more time in here that I have to." She says quietly, under her breath.

Yaz nods, not responding.

She's better at acting casual than the Doctor is, which makes her feel at least somewhat better. And also worse. Because now, she fits in here too. Or at least she looks the part, in the long sparkly dress and expensive-looking jewelry and that distantly calculating look in her eyes.

Something about _fashioning people into weapons_ echoes in the back of the Doctor’s head, and she _hates_ that she’s dragged _another_ innocent little human into a dangerous situation light years away from Earth. It wasn’t _right_.

When the waiter comes back to ask if they want to order food, the Doctor jumps at the chance to say they would rather retire to their room now and perhaps order room service.

"More privacy. Of course." The waiter says, with a pleasant smile and a tone of voice that suggested an entirely different type of privacy than what the Doctor had in mind. Which, she did have to admit, _did_ work pretty well into their cover story. Maybe they were just there for a date. Just a wine date. Absolutely no shenanigans involved. Yes. That worked.

Yaz played her role much more convincingly than the Doctor, immediately adapting and slipping her hand to the Doctor's, surprisingly casually.

Their room is at the upper levels, far away from the engine room - another thing that made the Doctor uncomfortable. But she tries her best to ignore this and just smiles instead, and focuses on the feeling of Yaz’s hand on hers.

The room is bigger and emptier than she would like, there is a large bed with expensive-looking silk sheets on it that were no doubt made by companies with really poor labor laws for bugs and insects. There's also a bathtub and a skylight - which is the only thing on this trip that made the Doctor actually feel comfortable. The stars.

They were somewhere near Orion, which made sense - all those supernovae explosions, good for hiding - and it also made for a good light show for the passengers.

"Well, this is cozy." Yaz notes with a sarcastic voice, letting go of the Doctor's hand and walking into the room. Her red dress contrasts starkly with all the white decor; everything is white, the walls, the floor, even the ceiling - and it makes the Doctor feel a little bit sick.

She follows silently and closes the door behind them.

"What should we do next? Snoop around a bit?" Yaz continues, walking around the room, mapping it out.

"No snooping." The Doctor answers without looking at her. She shoves her hands in her pockets, and takes a deep breath. "Too dangerous. I'll try to triangulate the source of the message, and we go from there. Find who sent it and why, and if we can, help them."

It sounded like an easy plan. Simple. But it felt like anything but. There were so many variables, so many things they didn’t know yet.

But at least now they were away from prying eyes - one good thing about a spaceship for criminals was that there were no security cameras. Nobody wanted to see what happened behind these doors.

They don't get much privacy until someone interrupts them by knocking on the door.

The Doctor furrows her brows, and hopes it's nothing bad.

She motions for Yaz to get out of view, and opens the door.

First impression: A child. _So, inherently, not bad. Good._

"Hello?" The Doctor asks, leaning to the door frame a bit.

"Are you the Doctor?" The child asks, barely getting the words out. Scared, and a little bit shaky, the kid looks like they might start crying at any moment.

"Yes." The Doctor answers, trying to smooth out the worry from her face.

A child shouldn't be in a place like this, and she didn't want to make the kid any more worried or scared than they already were.

The child lets out a deep, shaky breath. "Can you help me?"

The Doctor takes a breath and hopes that this is why she came here. A child who needs help.

"Probably. What do you need help with?" The Doctor says, with her best _helping children_ -voice.

The child looks down. "I need to get away from here."

The Doctor smiles. "Well, that I can help with." She crouches down to the child’s level, "See, I happen to have the _best_ spaceship in the universe. Brilliant and very blue and a tiny bit alive and very, very good at getting out of tight spots."

She stands up, now remarkably more relaxed, and guides the child into the room. Yaz emerges to the doorway, too, immediately introducing herself to the child and asking what happened, are they okay, how did they end up here. The Doctor closes the door again and checks the scan she had left running in the background.

As the child is explaining the situation to Yaz, the Doctor smiles and nods at her from behind the child's back - this was, in fact, why they were here.

Apparently, the child had been kidnapped. And they had wished for someone to save them, and heard of the Doctor, going around the universe helping people, and, well - that was it.

A weight rolls off of the Doctor's shoulders.

She had been worried the message might have been sent by someone evil. But helping children was a whole different thing. She would always help children. And they had already found the child, so from here on out, the mission was already practically half done.

After that, the biggest problem was getting the child safely to the TARDIS and not taking a detour to fight everyone on the ship, which the Doctor felt a very strong urge to do, especially after the child explains what had happened.

But they manage. They get the child to the TARDIS and back to a safe planet and to a loving family, and everything is good, they are back in the TARDIS and they are safe, and the Doctor is doing her best to avoid eye contact with Yaz, who is leaning to one of the railings in the console room, still in her red dress.

The silence stretches to be uncomfortably long, and the Doctor stomps to the console.

"Doctor?" Yaz asks. The Doctor doesn't respond.

"Everything okay?"

The Doctor doesn't respond.

After a long, heavy, sizzling silence and few _beeps_ from the TARDIS, she finally caves in and answers.

"I understand if you want to go home." She says, so fast all the words bleed into each other, and even though the sentence isn't long it leaves her feeling out of breath.

Yaz turns around so quickly she almost falls over. "Why would I want to do that?" She asks, like it's the stupidest thing she's heard all day.

The Doctor stops in her movements and just blinks at her. "Because of what happened tonight?"

"Because you took me to a dangerous place? We're always in dangerous places, Doctor, I'm pretty used to it by now." Yaz continues, still confused about what the Doctor was talking about.

"No, I-" The Doctor furrows her brows a little. She waits for several heartbeats before finishing the sentence. "Because I got us in there."

She waits for a beat, letting Yaz connect the dots.

" _I got us in there_ , Yaz. Don't you understand what that means?"

A heavy silence falls over them.

"I thought - the psychic paper-" Yaz tries to argue, but it doesn't sound very solid.

The Doctor breathes out and hands her the paper, showing her the same thing she had showed them - her real ID.

"I went as myself, Yaz. That's why they let me in so easily. The security in that place is way too high, nobody gets in with a lie and lives very long." Her voice is grim, and at this point, she's not even trying to conceal it.

Yaz is staring at her, with her brows stuck somewhere between fear and confusion, and briefly the Doctor wishes she could wipe this entire night from her memory.

She could, of course, and this only makes her feel worse about herself.

The Doctor turns around and busies herself with doing absolutely nothing of substance with the controls on the console. "Remember what I said about the price of admission?"

She doesn't wait for Yaz to answer. Her silence is answer enough.

The Doctor sets in the coordinates to Earth. Yaz’s time. So she could just walk out of the door if she wanted to.

She leans to the console, and lets out a deep breath. "I've lived a long life, Yaz. Before you came along. I've fought in wars and I've ended them. I've done terrible things, things nobody should ever have to do. I'm a war criminal and a killer and I'm every bit as bad as the people on that ship, the only difference is that I can change my face and pretend that I'm a new person. But I'm not, not really."

She takes a shaky breath. "I burned my own planet, Yaz. My own people. Gallifrey, I _burned_ it. I brought it back later, but that's not the point. I pushed a button and I burned it, everyone on it, and all the Daleks, too. Or so I thought. I made myself the last of the Time Lords. I did that. Me. And that’s not even the end of it, I-” The Doctor looks down, now avoiding eye contact with her own reflection, too. “I'm no better than the people on that ship."

"No." Yaz says quietly, after a long silence. "No, don't say that."

The Doctor doesn't argue. She doesn't have the energy to argue about this. Not anymore.

“No, Doctor, listen." Yaz finally moves, taking a step towards her. The Doctor instinctively moves back, keeping the distance between them.

"Please don't say that about yourself. Please don't believe that. You're so much more than that, you're so..." Yaz drifts off. The Doctor avoids her gaze.

"No, listen to me. You _are_ better than those people. You know why? Because you _try_. You try to be better. You help people when they ask for help, even when it might be a trap. You help people even when it puts you in danger. You help without asking questions and you always choose to believe in the good in people. And you're kind, you're _so_ kind."

“You don’t get it.”

“No, I do, Doctor. You _are_ better, because if you weren’t, you wouldn’t feel bad. Don’t you understand? You’re better because you _want_ to be better.”

Yaz comes to stand right next to her. “You _are_ better. Do you know why?”

She doesn’t wait for the Doctor to respond. 

“Because you helped that child. And you helped _me_ when I needed it.”


End file.
